Many New York Times readers noticed the odd disclaimer tucked
in the middle of a recent front-page story in which unnamed aides
to President Clinton described him as "'livid'" over Vice President
Gore's criticism of his behavior in the Flytrap scandal. "The
motives for Mr. Clinton's aides and advisers to talk about the
President's feelings toward Mr. Gore are not entirely clear," warned
reporters John Broder and Don Van Natta, Jr. "They may be trying to
help the Vice President establish distance from the President by
portraying Mr. Clinton as angry. They may be trying to demonstrate
their closeness to the President. Or they may simply be honestly
reporting how Mr. Clinton and his inner circle have reacted to
Mr. Gore's recent statements."

At first glance, this disclaimer seems refreshingly honest and
self-conscious; Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz
praised the Times for it. At second glance, I'm not so sure.
Isn't it the job of journalists to figure out whether what people
are telling them is true or not-- to check out any seemingly shaky,
or spinny, story by seeking corroboration, asking other sources, etc.? That's what
it means to be a reporter, no? Anyone can take down the leak of the
day from a staffer, stick in a boilerplate disclaimer paragraph that
says, in effect, "This whole story could easily be complete b.s.,"
and slap it on the front page.

The Times may be wary because it has been spun so badly in
the past by the Clintons' White House. There was Broder's famous
declaration in April, 1998 that, with the dismissal of Paula
Jones' lawsuit, it was "politically inconceivable that Congress
will consider impeachment." But my favorite was the analysis, by
the otherwise estimable James Bennet, of what it meant that so
many key White House aides were bailing out of their jobs a year
ago this month. To the untutored, this mass exodus might have
seemed a sign of trouble. But Bennet had a more sophisticated,
ironic take. The aides, you see, couldn't bail while
Clinton was in trouble, since then they'd look like they
were bailing out because he was in trouble. So the fact that they
were indeed bailing out was actually a good omen for Clinton. "It
is a measure of how much turbulence has shaken the White House this
year, " Bennet wrote,"that the departure of some of the President's
most trusted lieutenants would seem a sign of growing stability."
Within weeks, of course -- as Clinton changed his Monica story,
issued his unapologetic apology, and sluiced toward impeachment ---
it became clear that the crude, untutored view had been the correct
one. Perhaps Bennet could have saved himself with another innovative
disclaimer: "This reporter, trying to demonstrate his sophistication,
may have either been spun, or spun himself, into ludicrousness."

HRC at the Pat Farm: Hillaryphiles on the left, and
Hillaryphobes on the right, have something in common: neither
group believes the First Lady could possibly have endorsed her husband's
signing of the radical 1996 GOP-designed welfare reform bill. On the
Hillaryphobe side, The Wall Street Journals's Paul Gigot
wrote skeptically about Mrs. Clinton "reinventing" herself as a
"born again moderate" in her appearance at New York Senator Pat
Moynihan's farm. Among other things, Hillary said that though
she had some "strong concerns" about early Republican versions
of the welfare bill, "eventually the bill was in a state that I
felt should be signed." Gigot laughs at this --"T]he first lady
now says she was for it all along" -- and describes Hillary, in
what may become the standard GOP caricature, as a lefty rewriting
her history to get elected.

Gigot and the Republicans should rethink this line of attack,
because the evidence is that Hillary really did favor her
husband's signing of the welfare bill. I
don't know this for sure, of course. But the people I've
talked with in and out of the White House who know the most
(and who are not, I think, "trying to demonstrate their closeness
to the President") all say Hillary favored signing the bill and
seemed comfortable with that decision. I also know that she met
with at least one respected, moderately conservative supporter
of the legislation, Douglas Besharov of the American Enterprise
Institute, shortly before the decision was irrevocably made.
Presumably Hillary wanted to reassure herself that the legislation
was acceptable.

This doesn't mean Hillary's decision wasn't influenced by the
potentially disastrous political consequences of a Clinton
welfare veto. Nothing concentrates the mind, etc. etc. But
it does mean she wasn't rewriting her history last week. She
made the same decision her husband made. ...

If Republicans are going to paint Hillary as a dole-lover,
they'd better generate some new welfare controversies.
How's this one: if a single mother getting welfare checks flat-out
refuses to show up for a workfare job, should she be
allowed to nevertheless stay on the dole with only a
slight reduction in benefits? Hillary's likely GOP
opponent, N.Y. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, says "no."
Hillary (probably) says "yes." What a bleeding heart! . . .
But wait a minute -- New York's Republican Governor George
Pataki says "yes" too. Oh well. ... Gigot's other examples
of Hillary's soon-to-be-concealed left-wing history are
especially pathetic: He charges she once "toasted Anita
Hill and praised the French welfare state." Well, move
over Jane Fonda! ...

In general, on the question of whether Hillary is at
bottom a) an inflexible left-lib ideologue or b) a power-seeker
who will coldbloodedly sell out the left when necessary, I lean
to b). Connie Bruck persuasively argued for that view in a long
New Yorker profile of Hillary in 1994 -- a piece that
provided a virtual roadmap to Hillary's subsequent sellout of
the left in the welfare debate. . . . The continuing mystery,
of course, is why Hillary's leftish supporters don't see this,
and instead keep on following her blindly to the slaughter.
No less than Gigot, they think Hillary must have
chewed out her husband over the welfare decision. ("Did you kick his [deleted] for that?" the Village Voice's Wayne Barrett speculates hopefully.) They're
spinning themselves.